The Internet finds yet more women to hate

Pissed off cats: Much more entertaining than pissed-off dudes on the Internet

So yesterday, I appeared (albeit very briefly) on TheStream on Al Jazeera English along with Helen Lewis of the New Statesman, social media researcher Alice Marwick, Skepchick blogger Rebecca Watson, and others. The topic: online misogyny and harassment of women. No sooner had the show ended than I ran across two perfect examples of precisely the sort of misogynistic harassment we’d just been talking about, courtesy of Reddit and Roosh.

First, Reddit. On Monday, Forbes columnist Kashmir Hill – female, beep boop! – wrote a piece mocking the notion (apparently widespread in some circles) that in these hyper-connected days people without Facebook accounts are a bit suspect. But part way along towards making her point she committed the terrible error of making the following not-to-be-taken-literally remark:

We’re “addicted” to our iPhones, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Android, and Pinterest, and iPads, and Word with Friends, and fill-in-the-blank-with-your-digital-dope-of-choice.

Not literally true, or meant to be taken as such, but a fairly commonplace observation.

Yet it managed to enrage one dude in a Reddit discussion of her piece, who offered this response (which I am hoping is also not to be taken literally):

To the writer: I’m not addicted to any of that, you stupid cunt.

Damn, this “article” is so full shit I’m seriously considering becoming a mass murderer.

This being Reddit, his comment got, last I checked, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIVE upvotes, and 727 downvotes, for a net score of 1071.

Never mind that the Forbes writer put “addiction” in ironic quotes. Never mind that she was suggesting it’s a bad idea to assume that anyone without a Facebook account is a psychopath.

None of that matters, because a dude on Reddit who obviously only skimmed the first paragraph of her piece decided she needed to be taken down a peg.

HOW DARE SHE MENTION PINTEREST I’M NOT ADDICTED TO THAT SHIT I ONLY SPEND MOST OF MY LIFE ON REDDIT POSTING DOZENS OF COMMENTS A DAY.

I doubt that many of the upvoters really had much of an opinion of the issues at hand; they were, I imagine, just happy for the chance to upvote some dude calling a woman on the internet a cunt.

Meanwhile, over on Blag Hag, skeptic blogger Jen McCreight found herself the target of a fellow we here at Man Boobz have been coming to know quite well: Roosh “When No Means Yes” Valizadeh, the, er, dating guru. McCreight, you see, recently took aim at a post of Roosh’s that argued, with the help of a little homemade chart, that educated women are “boner killers.”

His response to her takedown? A tweet with her picture attached to it and the question “would you date this girl?”

Naturally, that was all it took to unleash a this torrent of tweets from Roosh’s fans:

Other dudes popped into her comments section and offered more detailed assessments of what they saw as her deficiencies in the boner-inducing department. According to a fellow called Karl:

Your overall level of physical attractiveness (negative 10, if your photo is anything to go by) is enough to keep self-respecting, non-totally-desperate men away from you. Misogynistic or not. Your level of education has nothing to do with it.

Happily, McCreight has thick skin, and doesn’t particularly care that men she finds repugnant aren’t interested in dating her. But not everyone does.

As harassment goes, these aren’t even particularly egregious examples. This is just the sort of stuff that happens every single day to women on the internet who have the temerity to say things that some dude, or some dudes, don’t much like.

Oh, sure, I get lots of shit from the MRAs of the world. Heck, after hearing about my Al Jazeera appearance, our old friend ThePigman had this to say about me on Reddit yesterday:

For the sake of those who will be watching i really hope Dave wears both his paper bag and a girdle.

But the thing is, I’ve written literally 800 posts about misogynist assholes like ThePigman and Roosh, and the worst thing they can think to say about me (aside from pointing out my weight) is that I’m a not a real man – that I’m a “mangina,” a “dickless wonder,” “such a girl,” “Little Ms. David.” (Those last three quotes are from some of the first truly nasty comments I got back on this blog shortly after starting it in 2010. ThePigman, with his talk of girdles, continues on in this fine tradition.)

As the case of Forbes’ Kashmir Hill and her Reddit detractors above makes clear, women can get even more violent responses after writing only a single sentence that somehow, even due to a gross misreading, pisses off some dude on the internet.

I read that on Blag Hag. Wow. I keep coming away from all this woman-hatred just being flabbergasted, mainly because the men I know are, you know, actual human beings. I have not actually encountered this hatred in what some people call meat space. It really horrifies me and shakes me up. In which I guess I’m just hopelessly naive. I feel like throwing up.

I’m a regular reader of Blag Hag and somehow I managed to miss that post. *Facepalm* (Though I did see the latest one on the topic of AVfM-on-the-Mars-landing that links to the post here). Thanks for link though!

(Also I missed the Roosh one before that too apparently, I are super fail.. But, d’awwwwwwwww, Pixel!)

Michelle Obama loves to describe her husband’s morning breath and struggles with smoking and failure to put away his socks. Her pull quote: “He’s a gifted man, but he’s just a man.” Got that, boys? You can be editor of the Harvard Law Review, first African-American president, director of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, loving husband and father, and an innovator of “absorption marijuana ingestion” to boot, but in the end “just a man.”

Um…yes? Is there supposed to be a point where you level up at Man and become the Starchild or something? What does he want Obama to say, “He’s a gifted man, and therefore he can fly and lightning shoots from his penis”?

It’s such a weird column. It’s like he realizes halfway through that his thesis is ridiculous, so he reverses his position and then just kind of trails off.

Also, I call no more using “Sex and the City” as proof of any current trends involving the evils of women. It’s been off the air for almost ten years. I know there were movies, but sheesh.

Some years ago, because of a Mafia joke I made, I posted as “La Piovra”, a grammatical feminine which, like “Cosa Nostra” and “Mafia” itself, designates a criminal syndicate whose members are mostly male. That in itself was enough to make me the target of incandescent filth…on CNN, which carefully screened out words like “Constitution” and “tectonic plates”, but ignored the grossest forms of personal abuse. I feel like there is a deliberate attempt to *normalize* this behavior, and wouldn’t be surprised if the upsurge in pathological misogyny were being stoked by deliberate agitators who don’t believe it themselves but need useful idiots.

“Sex and the City” is long gone, so thank goodness “Girls” has come along to fill the “TV show I haven’t actually watched, but I hear it’s about chick stuff and the lead chick isn’t even hot, so it must be some man-hating feminist thing” void.

I’ve gotten some of that. It’s interesting to see here… when some misogynist shitbird thinks I’m female, I get various levels of disparagement. When they find out I’m male, it’s usually “mangina”, white knight (NWO liked that one for a while) or the like, then some serious engagement then (more often then not, e.g. Varpole), I get ignored.

The female commenters here get people who make a point of attacking them, for being female. Some (I’m looking at you Al, Brandon) move from one to the next, as the target of their abuse proves to more than they can handle.

@Pecunium: Yeah. I hope I didn’t step on anyone’s toes in the last couple of days when that guy who said he was from the UK came over here talking about what we USians needed to do, and then amply demonstrated that he didn’t understand the nuances of US politics and got angry when we schooled him on dog whistles.

Watched the pilot episode of “Girls”. It was pretty good, for what it was, but…well, it’s like many other TV shows about “real” people (who are mostly, if not entirely, white), in that while there are some quirks and dismantling of stereotypes, it’s not exactly revolutionary.

With that said, there are some disturbing elements, like the main character’s boyfriend and their sexual encounter (at least from the pilot). For some reason, it seemed off to me, and even the main character felt that something was wrong. Not to mention the whole “post-college” thing that the main character goes through, leaving her unemployable and struggling.

Again, Pilot Episode Impressions, nothing more. I’ve yet to go through the rest of the season, because LIFE (also, no HBO at my house).

And yet they are shocked….simply SHOCKED that some women out there have less than stellar views of men. Or that some women feel afraid or nervous around men they don’t know well. I’m not saying that that is right, but neither is calling a woman a cunt for daring to suggest that a lot of people might enjoy social media a little too much.

Two things continuously baffle me. One is the insistence on the part of MRAs/PUAs that any woman who objects to their statements must be ugly, or possibly unable to ‘get a man’. Yet it is obvious that they don’t only dislike (or disdain, if you prefer) unattractive women, but also attractive ones. Do they assume that if you’re hot, you don’t want/ need basic rights? Does it cancel out everything else? Yes, occasionally I see this tactic employed by the ‘other side’ as well, which I believe is equally stupid. The two most misogynist men I’ve met in real life were both good-looking, sucessful and charming men (one was a professor, the other a policeman*). They got a lot of sex, but still looked down on all women. The speculation that MRAs are all ‘losers in their basements’ probably (unfortunately?) isn’t true.

The second thing that amazes me is that so many PUA types specifically hate American women and consider them to be more ‘feminist’ than other women, as well as less attractive. Having lived in both Europe and the US, I find that in general (just speaking in generalities here) European women are less worried about what men think of them, and less worried about being seen as ‘slutty’. The laws in many European countries are also slightly more skewed towards women.

Dammit, I told myself I wouldn’t post on here anymore.

*which, considering his lovely views on the subject of rape, is not something I like to think about too much

As for ‘Girls’ I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Susan Walsh and Roissy love it because supposedly it honestly portrays women for what they truly are: bad boy chasing dumb sluts. Any show endorsed by those 2 assholes I would give the side eye.

@Quackers: From what I’ve seen, Walsh and Roissy must have super-strong tunnel vision, because not all of the characters in ‘Girls’ are after boys. Each has a personality, and yes, there is sex, but that isn’t a sole motivation, it’s just…another activity, done with someone they like (even though there are icky things about the main’s relationship, at least from what I’ve seen. The whole thing is pretty awkward, and the sex sequence made me cringe a little because of how it was carried out by the boyfriend).

But like I said, only saw the Pilot. Maybe it does get worse and maybe it is hate-wank material for Roissy and his ilk, but I guess I need to confirm that for sure before sticking solely to Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire.

Two things continuously baffle me. One is the insistence on the part of MRAs/PUAs that any woman who objects to their statements must be ugly, or possibly unable to ‘get a man’. Yet it is obvious that they don’t only dislike (or disdain, if you prefer) unattractive women, but also attractive ones. Do they assume that if you’re hot, you don’t want/ need basic rights?

Yeah, it doesn’t even make sense for them to insult women’s looks and then declare that makes them wrong. Okay, so what if I look like a monster from Star Wars? Does that mean that everything I say is wrong, even when I say an objective fact like “Eleven is a prime number”? If a supermodel says that women are not people, that automatically makes it true? Facts and truth are not beauty pageants.

I found “Girls” to be a thoroughly obnoxious show, but that had more to do with the super white casting than anything. I was also bothered by the creepy dynamic between the main character and the dude she’s seeing; the show kind of recognizes that he’s manipulative, but (at least four episodes in) it seemed to be playing that for laughs, which is… yeah.

Oh, and the main character made a rape joke in one episode and an ableist joke in another, which made it hard to like her, for me.

OH, and there was one episode with some kinda weird gay-bashing vibes.

Anyway, point is, there are a lot of things to dislike about “Girls.” The fact that it has a primarily female cast is not one of them.

@Shaenon, I absolutely hated that trend of using Sex and the City plots to analyze actual women. What if you don’t have HBO and have never seen the show? How are you supposed to know how to act? Ditto Girls. They’re not documentaries, dumbasses.

Yeah that’s true. I suppose the endorsement just causes a kneejerk reaction in me. I could check it out for myself but I don’t care enough and would rather watch The Avengers cartoon lol.

@redlocker

It sounds like one of those shows that tries to portray human awkwardness but just fails. Anyway why would I want to watch a show about women in the post college limbo when I’m living that life myself? (but with less sex and no relationship drama) I also heard about the fact that it was an all white cast which is pretty fail.

And yet they are shocked….simply SHOCKED that some women out there have less than stellar views of men. Or that some women feel afraid or nervous around men they don’t know well.

YEP. I’m always baffled by Tom, who calls all women wh*res (sorry, 97%) and then claims women are more misandric than men are misogynist. I’m always like, dude, a) you’re projecting, b) of course women hate YOU because you are a douchebag who calls all women wh*res

@skeptifem: I’m actually going to reach back to Jesus Christ of Nazareth on that one. He said, and I quote, “so, my cousin John came along, and he didn’t drink a drop of alcohol, and he was always fasting. And you called him crazy! And I came along and drank wine with my dinner, and you called me a gluttonous drunkard!”

It doesn’t matter what you do; they will call you whatever name they think they can get away with calling you, because it’s not about the accuracy of their arguments. The very same guys who will dismiss her as ugly will dismiss her for being too attractive.

@Quakers: Yeah, that’s the thing…for all of the acclaim about the show portraying “real” people, it not only displays only one type of people (white folks), but even with it’s portrayal, it seems to have…tunnel vision. It’s almost like one of those existential books that claims to be about what real life is like…only one realizes that the reach of the author is extremely limited and only speaks about their life at best.

@Gametime: Wow, really? Damn. Glad I’m not the only one noticing the off-putting things about the main’s boyfriend.

I guess Rouche knows he can’t defend his position, so he immediately goes straight for the ad hominem, calling her looks into question and baiting his syncophant attack dogs to do his dirty work.

I could barely make it through that Esquire article. The author’s evidence of female contempt of men is Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin are dumb and Michelle Obama says her husband is just a man.

He also states “In parts of the United States, rapes have declined to such a low number that they can’t be charted.” What parts would that be? What do you bet it’s in parts with extremely low population density?

I know that my personal observations don’t count for much, but pretty much every woman I know has suffered at the very least ongoing sexual harassment in public, online and in the company of “friends”.

More than 90% have experienced physical molestation of varying intensity, from ongoing unwanted touching from someone they know well or being groped by a stranger in public or at a party.

And sadly, many have been raped, sometimes once and sometimes on an ongoing basis by an abusive partner.

So when MRAs say blatantly horrible, rapey things and it upsets people, it simply boggles my mind that their go-to response is to either deem us unrapeable (like that is the only way a woman can escape rape and abuse) or to start up the concentration camp fantasies where hot women are treated like fuckpets until they get worn out and the rest of us can legally be hunted down and murdered like prey or simply processed in death camps.

So when MRAs say blatantly horrible, rapey things and it upsets people, it simply boggles my mind that their go-to response is to either deem us unrapeable (like that is the only way a woman can escape rape and abuse) or to start up the concentration camp fantasies where hot women are treated like fuckpets until they get worn out and the rest of us can legally be hunted down and murdered like prey or simply processed in death camps.

There’s also the third, slightly less used, but still seemingly popular “I hope you get raped” or “you deserve(d) to get raped, you ___insert whatever insult they feel is worse at the time___”. I find it pretty ridiculous when those kinds of comments crop up in response to things like women talking about their perceived safety – stuff like Schroedinger’s Rapist, etc.

It’s like, hey, if you’re pissed off that a lot of women fear for their safety on a regular basis, maybe, yanno, making thinly veiled threats isn’t the best way to make them stop fearing for their safety?

Continuing for earlier, my apologies, I guess I should have specified, what I meant to get across was that it really disturbs me that such hateful sentiment infects more corners of the internet than just reddit. Reddit is a given, and I do still browse it for the content, but large swathes of the community seem to be some of the most hateful people I have the displeasure of reading comments by. And while I find it’s less common on other parts of the internet, It still happens disturbingly often, I guess I have to ask, why is there so much hatred in the world? I know that that might come across as somewhat naive of me, but I seriously can’t figure it out.

What is so weird is that Jen from BlagHag got attacked by someone on scienceblogs awhile back for being too attractive (suggesting that she got special favors in college as a result).

Oh yeah, women can’t win, have you noticed? Notice what happens to the ones we’re supposed to think have it all. Roles appear to be more limited as social/financial ladders are climbed. So while men can say, that male privilege you speak of does not apply to the lower classes for men, I can say, true to a point ( some privilege never dies because it’s relative) but for women… i’ts pretty sad that feminism ceases to be relevant no matter the station or access to resources. Do we think “trophy wives” have it easy? And no I’m not kidding, being quite serious. People spend a lot of time hating. ‘beautiful’ and wealthy people, so it’s hard to bring up without people maybe thinking you’re joking or upset for these people when there are more important things to worry about. I’m saying when I look at what’s supposed to be the best of the best for women in any walk of life, I realize feminism is a slam dunk, there’s no denying the need for it.

” why is there so much hatred in the world? I know that that might come across as somewhat naive of me, but I seriously can’t figure it out.”

I know.
It’s a different mindset than you or I have apparently. It takes a lot of figuring out if you don’t really get it. I think I’ve got it. There are some people that are convinced everything is a survival game, and that things move in a linear shape. Not to mention the infection of culture. Throw in issues of emotional need that we all have and a malfunctioned ego and wallah. Recipe for a narcissist society. Narcissist doesn’t just mean people that look in the mirror, they are people whose existence and feelings of well being revolve around persona, identity and external specialized perceived admiration. Failing to get their perceived needs met is tantamount to attempted murder and you will get your eyes scratched out. Unfortunately this empty misfire happens in any group, even any political group. And it’s not about just “ego”. That’s common to people, but it’s about having that as their only MO, the center of their universe. I think this is why it’s so invisible, because the problems with these people and a culture that swims in this, is that each component of it is somewhat normal.

More than anything they remind me of the men who have pissed and moaned over “the servant problem” generation after generation for the past two hundred years. They just can’t get good help these days. Poor things, how they suffer.

When you have any disagreement with a woman, whether about politics, culture, or deep philosophical issues, just call her a c*nt, that we all can hate her for being a woman, and not have to expand any energy in having to refute her ideas. These guys are so smart!

They also whine about women who fear for their safety. It’s wrong to be afraid that any one might rape you. It’s wrong not to trust the guy who offers you a lift when you have a flat; or to help you take the groceries to the car, etc.

Is anyone on here a couchsurfer? Roosh and his cronies talk a lot about hooking up on CS and the best ways to go about it. When the greater CS community got wind of it about a month ago, all hell broke loose in the Roosh forums. The women* coming out against these “harmless” PUAs creeping up their towns did so on the CS website, so they weren’t even on the Roosh forum AFAIK. Nonetheless, the PUAs’ primary counterargument was to post pictures of from the women’s CS profiles on the Roosh forum so that their relative hotness could be rated. The vast majority of them were, of course, deemed to be too ugly to have to worry about falling into the clutches of a PUA. Worse, though, were the women who, while not “high quality females” all in all, did have certain body parts that would be worth “sticking a dick into”.

I’m a couchsurfer myself, so I found this particular shitstorm to be utterly fascinating. Thankfully, reading this forum has hardened me off a bit when it comes to the horrible shit people say about women, so I was able to kept the audible cries of disgust to a respectable minimum.

*and men, but as the OP already said, it’s the women who get more abuse

In Roosh’s mind, women only exist to be sex objects for men, so if a woman is not attractive to men, she has no reason to live. By calling her unattractive, he is basically telling her that she is worthless and should not even continue to live. I guess it hasn’t occured to him that women exist independently of what men think of them. They are even capable of thriving without male approval. Who would have thought?

aworldanonymous: There are shitty people around. I might be wrong here, but I have a feeling shitty is easier to spot on a trawl of internets than caring and unprejudiced, especially as a good chunk of being unprejudiced involves not drawing any attention to it…

I was just about to say, “you know, I don’t usually call people childish, but these dudes behave like third graders.” and then I read the first comment on this page from Sharculese saying the exact same thing.

*raises hand* another couchsurfer here, btw (who ironically hooked up with a host more than half a decade ago, and saying it like that makes it sound like a Very Long relationship). I’m not super-active after moving though, so I haven’t seen any of this. I’m glad it’s causing an outrage, because it’s so against what everyone else surfs for.